Arcadia
by ShadowDianne
Summary: "Queen of the fae, she was once feared. Even now myths and stories are now whispered into the night, brought by the ashes of fires in which children gather around. Everyone knows her stories, but some don't think them as true. And then a princess goes into the woods, trying to find a place to stay, to hide." Asked by pressuredrightnow via tumblr
1. Chapter 1

**A/n: The prompt was sent to me by the tumblr's chat and in the form of a picture. What I can say though is that the original thought was made by two accounts. In the first comment one could read: Me, the living embodiment of a twelfth century maiden and willful heroine of a medieval ballad: "The words are a totally, valid, reasonable and safe place to meet new friends and men." And, on the reblog, the answer was: "Me, the living embodiment of the fairy queen to whom the woods belong, sick and tired of all these maidens traipsing about picking my roses and trampling on my moss: "Oh my fucking god."**

 **Being the little shit I am I changed some of the premises in order to make Emma less of a maiden and more of a... I would say in DnD terms she would be closer to ranger(?) more or less at least xD**

 **PS: Since we are on the topic I fully recommend Under the pendulum sun by Jeannette Ng because that's a book that captures perfectly well what the Fae are about. Plus, it is written in such a way that one can't stop reading it until you reach the shocking end…**  
 **On with the story! I'll see you at the comments section ;)**

 _Arcadia_

 _"Queen of the fae, she was once feared. Even now myths and stories are now whispered into the night, brought by the ashes of fires in which children gather around. Everyone knows her stories, but some don't think them as true. And then a princess goes into the woods, trying to find a place to stay, to hide. And as danger approaches from the shadows of leaves and branches creatures watch her, waiting for her majesty to come."_

* * *

Emma knew the stories, had heard them since childhood, when she didn't have marriages to worry about or a kingdom to lead. She knew of creatures made of moss, brought alive by the same magic wizards and sorceress alike wielded in order for the royal family to be safe from those trying to kill them. She had liked the stories even, back when she had been that child, wide eyed and dreaming of far-away lands created in the edge of summer rays and pulsing hearts.

Those times, however, were long past. So, as such, as she left the stallion she had stolen in the middle of the afternoon, -once the stable boy had fallen asleep with a tincture purchased to a smarmy man in the darkest streets of the city, on the northeast barrier of the forest, she didn't think twice about those creatures of translucent wings and keen eyes. She merely saw the woods as temporary shelter, a place to stay as the first scouts started to, probably, search for her.

The afternoon sun was already hiding behind the first mountain range at her right and, by the time she reached the first true line of the woods, she was already smelling the mud that was beginning to stain her boots. Under the foliage, the warm temperatures that made her parents kingdom so famous weren't there and, even if she was already accustomed to haunt and live outside the walls of the castle -never had been the kind of staying inside- she shuddered, thinking all of a sudden if the blue doublet she wore was going to be enough. Or the small dagger she had been able to put between her clothes after exiting her bedroom chambers.

She could go back, a voice on her head whispered, but she didn't listen to it, touching instead one of the knot-filled side of one tree at her right, peering between it and the next one. Mottled with green, the soil around the tree was wet, however, and didn't provide enough comfort for her so she kept walking, leaving behind the path made by those who navigated through the woods with carts and goods between the kingdoms.

Hissing when her right foot slipped, she grumbled a curse between clenched teeth that didn't travel far within the thick leaves and ferns that covered that side of the forest. Their colors still bright enough to provide enough comfort as the light dimmed.

Unknown to her, however, ears heard the word, and worried eyes followed her movements as they separated themselves from the soil and wood she had just stepped in.

"The queen is not going to like this." They all whispered to each other, the buzzing of the words getting lost to the human that kept on traipsing through the woods that, once upon a time, had been given to them in a treaty so ancient for humans and mortals alike it could already be dust.

One of them, covered in verdigris, nodded sagely and disappeared, letting the others keep on looking at the princess, her blonde curls a lighthouse into the night that was already beginning to set.

Deep into the forest, in a place that even some could say that wasn't in the actual forest anymore, the trees thickened and grew in height until nothing but them could be seen. To humans, the place oozed a strange sense of discomfort. Although not many had seen such place.

The fairy that run from shadow to shadow, however, didn't have such qualms and so, she pretty quickly found herself in the middle of a few dozen of trees that, to non-magical creatures didn't seem any different than the others around her. For her, however, the wood was different, pulsing, and the dust that covered the large square-shaped leaves spoke of her from the few hundreds like her that did their best to keep the magic inside the bark of the trees contained. A slightly difficult as magic -like every other creature- didn't like to be told what to do.

Swallowing, she stepped inside the trees, her body merging with the trunks before she breathed inside of them.

The room that greeted her was, unlike the forest outside, illuminated with will-o-wisps trapped inside ash-made jails. Their tremulous light didn't make her shudder but the sudden transformation her body went through did; her stature growing from her usual one to the one she very rarely got to use. Wincing, she craned her neck as her wings folded around her body, iridescent colors covering her skin in the same way the verdigris was still staining her fingers and wrists, her eyes completely black as she blinked.

Once upon a time that spell managed to make her almost human, sans, perhaps, the ability to breath and eat human-made food. Now, however, that knowledge had been lost. With one exception.

"You know how I prefer to talk to you like this." A voice reached her as she closed and opened her hands, waiting for the tingling from the magic to fade.

"I'm sorry your majesty." She replied, her voice hoarse as her vocal chords trembled, not used to words been made like that.

On the far end of the almond-shaped room, a shadow manifested itself outside the walls. The shadow transforming in silhouette as brown eyes opened, red lips turning into a smirk as a head covered in brown-colored locks nodded.

"What brings you here?" The silhouette said, her lips barely moving but her voice reaching the fairy even stronger than before.

Taking a step forwards, the faery bowed, the now wrapped wings cracking with the movement, sensing the presence of magic that emanated from the Queen.

"There's been a breach." She murmured, raising her eyes just enough so she could she a barely there tremor on the back of the majesty's eyes. "A human girl is walking through the woods."

The words, albeit said at some point in the past, felt strange and alien as a flare on the will-o-wisps light seemed to punctuate her words. Returning to her apparent boredom, the Queen rose her brows as she took a step forward as well, purple light enveloping her as black sap climbed through her legs, creating a similar dress than the faery was already wearing albeit the small drops of sap that remained forever liquid and yet crystalized, made the faery gulp.

"Let her grow bored." The Queen said, her lips curving into a feline-like smile. "All humans do."

"She is leaving the mortal path behind." The faery pushed, knowing very well that she shouldn't but still willing to give the information.

The queen huffed at that, the sap falling now from her wrists towards her fingers as she rose her right hand, purple sparks falling out of her in almost drops. The faery felt the magic closing around her, squeezing her empty chest in a painful enough way that made her gasp even if she didn't have any lungs to speak off.

"There is a deal, a contract." The Queen snarled. "Don't interfere. She will go back to her world as soon as she realizes there is nothing for her here."

The faery knew it was her queue to leave, to go back to the trees and soil she so much adored, to the trickling magic of the forest. Enchanting but not as much as the one of the Queen. She, however, had been a godmother to human children once, many years ago when tales were still told about them, incantations and favors asked from them and, perhaps for that, she could remember something the presence of the Queen couldn't.

Or perhaps she had a death wish.

"Shouldn't we look for her? Under the moonlight the woods change in ways mortals can't handle." She wheezed and the power around her disappeared as she spoke up, the hands of the Queen falling back to her sides.

"That should be her concern, not ours." The words, albeit regal, hold a smidge of worry and the faery smiled to herself even if she could feel her entire body trembling like a leaf.

Unknown to them, however, many other eyes were already following the steps of the blonde mortal that, still walking deeper and deeper into the forest, was beginning to feel tired.

The trees surrounding Emma had changed; bark darker and damp under her fingertips, the moonlight a vague memory whenever she managed to look up, between the branches and leaves that fell upon her. Tiredness beginning to set as well as a rumbling stomach, the princess looked around her, at the whispering forest that seemed to come closer to her every time she took her eyes from the ferns that were now beginning to reach her midriff.

The sounds weren't different from, perhaps, others she had already heard when she followed around her parents' hunters, on those days she still had been able to do such a thing but something there -on the hoots and wailings, seemed to be darker, almost like a warning being murmured by mots that felt like dancing just an inch away from her. Blinking, she focused on a spot a few meters away, a strange gleaming bluish light beckoning her from the dark green grass and almost black mud.

Unheard by her, the creatures that had kept following her looked at each other, nervous.

"We should help her." One made from rotten bones of thousands of creatures signed in the air, its voice the sound of the wind getting caught on branches and glass.

"We can't." Another covered in insects whispered back from the ground, its eyes red and multiple. "The treaty…"

"The wild hunt will be out in less than a few mortal hours." The first one replied with a hiss. "They will devour her; they hadn't been able to taste a mortal since the treaty was done."

"Perhaps that's her price to pay." Answered a third creature, leaves and slowly withering flowers running through skin that seemed to almost be water. "No mortal should be outside their paths."

The second creature seemed about to answer when her eyes fell upon the human, her sclera turning white with fear as she saw where the woman was heading for.

"The seal." She said, pointing at the clearing no mortal should be able to see and yet where the woman's steps seemed to be heading, leaving behind the trees and rocks that had been scattered across the land by giants and dwarves centuries ago. "She is going to the seal."

"Impossible." The insectoid creature replied and on her voice moths and flies seemed to echo, sudden fear enveloping them all. "She couldn't…"

"We must warn Blue." The third one said. "She went to talk with the Queen."

"Neither of us could arrive to the castle before the mortal reaches the seal. Her fate is already written."

Meanwhile, Emma felt in a dream, the fog around her brain only seeming to grow as she walked towards the bluish light she had seen, steady but pulsing and creating a comforting warmth on her skin as she walked towards her. Mouth parched, she gulped and winced at the feeling on her throat, only to forget about it as, yes, the trees parted slightly letting her see a small clearing in which the light bounced, apparently source-less.

She could almost remember her wet nurse: Don't eat their food, don't go where they lie, don't enter their home. She, however, wasn't a toddler anymore and, perhaps for that, decided to walk towards the center of the clearing realizing, far too late, that the bluish glow seemed to follow her every movement in a fog that crawled her boots and legs until it licked her fingers with cold and a kind of power that felt like the one the sorceress had but ten, forty, a hundred times bigger.

"Free me."

The clearing was suddenly still as the voice echoed on her brain, her lungs beginning to ask for an oxygen she wasn't aware she was deprived from and, as she took a step backwards blindly, she could see her left hand fishing the dagger from her belt, its sharp blade glowing twice as she sliced open her other palm without her being able to stop her movement.

And then, as the light disappeared, engulfed in a vortex that seemed to come out of the very floor that didn't feel hard but soft and malleable under her boots, she could feel her body being liberated. Falling to her knees, she scrapped her hands as she let the dagger fall to the ground; rocks shifting as the vortex grew, lighting illuminating her face as she tried to find the opening of the clearing once again.

On the deepest part of the forest, a Queen and a faery rose their heads, the black sap covering the Queen's body seeming to tremble as one will-o-wisp died, its light dissolving into thin air as the cage it had been encapsulated until then fell into the room's floor.

"Call for my carriage." The Queen whispered with dark anger. "Treaty or not something has been changed on my forest."

"Yes, your majesty."

* * *

The forest floor was a welcoming sight to Emma's hands as she fell over it, twigs and branches biting into her flesh as she scrambled away from the clearing, heart beating fast on her throat and chest.

Magic, she thought, gaping and trying to gulp down as much air as possible, head reeling, wasn't supposed to be like this. Magic were tricks and grandiose words that truly didn't do anything until gemstone's dust were thrown above them.

Magic, she realized as she felt her knees wobble, was something very different from what she had learnt it to be. And while she reached that conclusion, the shadows around her only seeming to grow as thick, almost black, ink began to bleed and fall from the trees around her, the dim light turning even dimmer until nothing but grays and blacks surrounded her.

The taste of her own blood made her gag as she began to feel her own conscience beginning to slip, brain unable to catch up with what was happening around her. Shimmering shadows forming at the corners of her eyes, she tried to see them but, as soon as she tried to call for them they were gone. Earth trembling under her feet, she searched for the dagger, momentarily forgotten where she had dropped. There was nothing she could do, she realized, the sudden idea of her alone in the woods, completely devoid of any kind of help beginning to set as she tried to speak only to found that she was unable to.

Until a voice, rich and holding an accent that felt like the crackling of sparks and flames on a good fire, reached her as her vision cleared, the thundering sound dying as the shadows congealed and created a silhouette made out of smoke and fog.

"What are you doing here, human?"


	2. Chapter 2

-2-

The mortal girl eyed her with squinting eyes and lips covered in slowly drying blood. Her skin was white, whiter than, perhaps, some other mortals the Queen had been able to watch and follow many years ago, back when the treaty hadn't been created, back when creatures of the forest could come and go as they pleased. Her clothes were dirty but still spoke of someone born within royalty and that made Regina bare her teeth, letting the shadows and smoke disappear, making her look more real, holding a physical weight on the realm the blonde was able to see instead than feeling part of each leaf and bug that inhabited the forest around them.

Glancing quickly at where the seal had been, she narrowed her eyes at the traces of magic still coating the air. The enchantment had been broken. That much she had known when one of her hearts, the will-o-wisp, had fallen to the earth. Seeing it, however, made it much more real.

"You."

The blonde mortal had finally been able to find her voice; soft and deep, it hold a trace of the dizziness that was probably still overtaking her. At Regina's back the creatures that hadn't run away, afraid of her wrath, snickered and came closer, eyes lighting the forest floor in grays and reds.

"You aren't…" The blonde swallowed as Regina arched a brow, the sap that covered her body transforming ever so slowly, turning less liquid, less malleable, until something resembling leather and silk began to form. An appearance she had taken many moons ago; back when humanity was something desired, expected. The carriage at her back, one the mortal hadn't yet seen, trembled as it felt the magic that oozed out of her, calming and yet as black as the night. "…real. You can't be."

They didn't have time for pleasantries, the Queen thought, the wild hunt would be out shortly. Their power not hers to control.

"I can assure you, mortal, that I am real." She asked her voice to carry the chill of an autumn breeze as she rose one hand, beckoning the woman closer. She was curious. At least a part of her was. It didn't happen every day that a mortal was able to leave behind the paths made by their kind, finding a place that was supposed to be secluded and invisible for her. "Rise now."

The girl seemed a second away from scrambling away but, ultimately, she clenched her fists and, bringing with her dust and mud, she began to rose, pieces of dried vegetation adhering to her clothes. Blue was one of the few fairies still visible for the Queen and she winced at the damage done to the verdigris that covered her, that had created her, back when magic had been that strong. Regina, however, remained undaunted as the blonde pocketed her dagger, the distasteful thing glinting silver for a second, under the Queen's watchful gaze.

Waiting until the blonde was looking at her, slightly taller than what she had first thought, Regina tilted her head, the static of a summer storm what now filled her voice as she spoke.

"Do you realize what you have done?" Her voice didn't fill the clearing. She didn't need it to. Her tone was powerful enough for the fairies to kneel as well as for the human to swallow, knees wobbling as she, quite surprisingly, managed to resist her power. "Entering here." Regina began, eyes narrowed. "Breaking the treaty. Unleashing a Chernabog."

The blonde gaped at her, looking at her back momentarily before turning back at her. The doublet she wore was dirty, but the movement made the slightly golden thread that someone had interwoven on the fabric itself to glint. Someone, Regina thought with a witty smirk, still knew the stories. Even if the woman in front of her was useless.

"A treaty." The human mumbled, running a hand down her tresses, her dirty fingers sticky with caked mud and blood. "You… the stories are real?"

It was Regina's time to feel confusion crawling up her veins as the dress she wore shivered, answering to her sudden surprise.

"Stories." She wheezed between tightly clenched teeth. "That's what we have become, isn't it? Stories you mortals like to feign they aren't real."

The mortal eyed at her, eyes widened and mouth open. All of a sudden, at their right, the sound of a horn was heard, fog and the wet stickiness of upcoming rain beginning to fill the clearing they were in.

"What's that?" The mortal asked, turning promptly towards were the sound came. A mistake of course. The wild hunt always appeared from the opposite side their horn was heard.

"Nothing that should concern you." The Queen muttered, snapping her fingers, nails black as coal as a sudden purple spark grew between her fingertips. Like a puppet without strings, the mortal fell to the ground again, eyes closing.

"Your majesty." Blue whispered, fearful. The horn was becoming closer as well as the trepidation that seemed to fill the forest. The hunt had felt its prey.

Turning towards her, Regina eyed the creature as well as the nightmares that pulled her carriage, their inhuman eyes looking at her from their skeletal form, close enough to a mortal horse but not exactly. Never enough.

The faery was waiting, as well as the others that were beginning to mimetise around her, not wanting to be the ones present when the hunt eventually appeared.

"What should we do?" Asked the creature, the question beneath that one obvious and loud. "We could probably bring her to the forest limits."

Regina shook her head. Not tonight. Not with the hunt so close. Even if she liked to think she had given her back to the mortal world there was something still binding her to it after all. With one fluid movement she climbed to her carriage, looking at the still form of the mortal still at the soil at her feet.

"Bring her in." She said, her form beginning to dissolve inside the carriage. Around her she could hear the whispers of the fairies. Not a single mortal had ever mounted the Queen's carriage. "Once the sun is out we will leave her at the limits. Tonight, however…" She didn't finish the sentence; she didn't need to after all.

By the time the forest floor was covered in gas and glimmering fog, tentacles of darkness swallowing the little light the moon was able to channel through the thick leaves and branches, nothing but the broken seal welcomed the party of spectral, bloodlust creatures that appeared out of thin air, veins as blue as water and gold leaves covering their form the only thing visible under mortal eyes. With a collective roar, they all stared at the spot the mortal had been.

They knew they had lost.

* * *

Emma felt the return of her senses as a slow trickle that made her wince. Opening her eyes slightly, eyes protesting, she needed a couple of seconds until the tremulous blue light that floated above her became clear enough for her to take on her surroundings. She wasn't in the forest anymore however, that much was clear. Or, at least, she wasn't where she had first been, the absence of mud and water telling enough. Beneath her hands there was only wood, soft and seemingly to have been slowly carved into with gentle movements, gentler than any carpenter would be able on her parents' castle.

Groaning and licking her lips as she felt the cupric taste of dried blood on them, she swallowed thickly, wincing again as she felt her throat impossibly dry.

"You have water at your side." A feminine voice said at her back, soft but cutting. "I remember our magic making your kind thirsty."

Emma turned slightly, narrowing her eyes at the figure that stood on one side of the oval-shaped room. Even without any windows to speak of, the room was deeply illuminated with the aid of the globules that floated silently a couple feet above. The figure was in one slightly more shadowed corner however, and, from where Emma sat, only her profile was slightly visible; the sharp lines of her face blurry as a sudden wave of nausea threatened to overtake her once more.

"You." She managed to rasp, the memories of the clearing coming back to her. She felt the same dizziness than before, mixed with a burst of panic. She had heard the stories, she had known them by heart and yet, faced with the reality of them being something else than mere tales, she felt like her mind was about to break.

It was something they could do after all, right? Turn one mad; force them to forget who they were.

The figure shook with a mirthless laugh and turned, holding on her hands what seemed to be a handful of ash she promptly scattered, not a spec of it dirtying her fingers.

She looked strangely human, Emma found herself thinking, and yet terrible on her beauty, as if something she wasn't supposed to be looking at. The dress she wore glimmered like freshly poured tar and, for a moment, she wondered if it wasn't blood.

She didn't seem all that impressed with her though, one brow arched as she pointed at the wooden cup Emma hadn't realized that was there.

"Drink." She repeated again, a strange accent on her voice, holding something there that felt like power to Emma's tired mind. Perhaps it was, she thought while turning and picking the bowl up, stopping at mid-movement as she remembered the warnings: "Don't drink or eat anything they offer you."

"I'm good, thanks." She said, placing the bowl down and slowly standing to her usual height. Her words seemed to amuse the woman if the slight smirk that appeared on her blood red lips was anything to go by but Emma pressed her into a tight line and feigned that the itch on her throat didn't exist.

"Perhaps your kind hasn't forgotten everything about us." The woman said, off-handedly before waving her hands in one quick movement, the bowl disappearing in a cloud of purple dust. "Keep in mind, however, that our enchantments only work if we want, mortal."

Emma didn't say a thing, her eyes still trying to make out what she was seeing, where she was.

"You are…"

"The Queen of the Faeries, yes. I thought we have already established that." She didn't seem amused anymore, but there was no irritation on her face, only boredom. "What I want to discover, however, is what were you doing on my forest, outside the usual path. You aren't supposed to cross the lines."

"I thought you were mere tales." Emma wanted to wince as soon as she spoke, her blurted words floating between her and the faery in thick lines that almost shimmered in the air for a second, dirty white.

It was true though; there were tales about a Queen, one so terrible many wars and deaths had happened during her reign.

The woman smiled; her eyes glinting purple with a type of magic Emma hadn't ever seen before, not by any sorceress or magician of any reign.

"I guess that's what they wanted us to be. Evil stories to tell your children." There was anger now, boiling and strong beneath her words and Emma found herself shuddering. Not entirely out of fear but due to the pain also present there.

"I'm sorry." She whispered back, subtly trying to feel the dagger on her belt and realizing with a startle that the weight was were it was supposed to be. That alone made her breathe a little bit lighter. "Am… I didn't know. I only wanted to run."

It was strange, she thought, how easily she felt the compulsion to explain the woman in front of her –not a woman, not a mortal one at least her mind muttered to her.- everything. She narrowed her eyes at that; was she already hexed?

The brunette locks of the woman shuddered as the woman turned abruptly towards the shadowed corner where she had been standing until a few moments ago. It was a strange corner to be, Emma realized, something on the perfectly symmetrical room amiss.

"That still doesn't fix that you set a Chernabog free." The woman said, fingers pointing at something above their heads, the bluish lights twinkling for a second.

"A Chernabog?" The name didn't ring any bells but Emma felt like it should. Like, at some point, humanity had known.

The queen sighed and gave her her back completely, her shoulders hunching for a moment before she straightened her back once again in such a perfect posture Emma couldn't but feel impressed for. The woman should have been her teacher's favorite with such manners.

"A spirit of the forest." She said, turning again and walking towards one side of the room in where a throne rose with one humming sound, the wood around them growing and morphing in front of Emma's very own eyes. Seating daintily on it, the Queen crossed one leg over the other, hand on her chin. "They are dangerous to even us as they feed on fairy dust. Their magic helps but it comes with a price." She smiled mirthlessly. "And there is one roaming free on our forest, human, because you broke its seal."

Emma swallowed at the words, the itch on her throat becoming stronger by the minute. She could remember the light on the clearing, the voice that had whispered to her as she, stupidly, tried to seek what the light was about. Touching her diaphragm, she felt her stomach jump again, a soft twinkling light detaching from her fingers. Sparks, she thought but when she rose her sight again the Queen's own eyes were focused on her, power glimmering.

"You will leave once the sun reappears." The woman said, her voice louder than before. Her face, however, didn't shine with the same terrible beauty she had had previously. More human, maybe, she let her back touch the one of the throne. "A faery will escort you to the limits; before you can do any more damage."

That was unexpected; Emma had already surmised she was going to be chained because of her hubris. Yet a sudden pang of anxiousness hit her, almost like a punch onto her ribcage. She couldn't go back. Not now that she had managed to cross this far into the forest. And because precisely of that, or maybe because the Queen's power had slowly morphed into tiredness, Emma took a step forward, her boots heavy where the other woman's feet had been light.

"Let me help." She said, surprised of how her voice didn't tremble.

The Queen laughed at that, a short sharp laugh that carried with it the sound of an autumnal rain.

"You shouldn't worry about this." She answered, tongue sharp. "You are nothing but a mortal."

The blonde pressed the tip of her tongue against her teeth.

"I can help. I can try. I don't want to go back, I didn't intend on breaking that… that seal. I didn't know." She felt young, young and stupid as the Queen eyed her, eyes glimmering purple again but she also felt fiery anger on the pit of her stomach. She could help, she thought to herself. That had been the reason why she had left after all. To show everyone she was capable, that she was more than just a title and an inherited throne.

The woman waved her hands again, the dust she had thrown before quickly gathering between her fingers once again, morphing until a small cage was made, matte and strange.

"You don't have the magical prowess for that."

It was a simple reasoning; one Emma knew to be true. She wasn't a sorceress, she hadn't been granted with the powers that certainly run through the woman's veins. If she did have veins. But she wanted to help. And wanted to keep on crossing the forest; leave her former life behind.

"I was able to break the seal. Let me help. It's the least thing I could do."

The Queen narrowed her eyes at her and stood, never looking away from her hands, her fingers glimmering in the same kind of spark Emma could still feel her own filled with.

"Careful, we are deceiving creatures. I may want to lure you and eat your heart."

It felt like a truth until it didn't and Emma wondered if that was the peculiar way the Queen tried to joke with her.

"You can do that?" She asked. But her question went unanswered as the woman walked past her, caressing a wooden wall with one palm. "What's your name?" She called.

"Don't you know?" She heard the other say. "Never give or ask a name to a faery."


	3. Chapter 3

Arcadia

Beyond the wooden wall, that opened silently under the command of the Queen, a dark void awaited them both. One that, as soon as the brunette creature entered into, illuminated in subtle gleams of the same purple colored sparks that had danced on the tips of the brunette mere moments ago.

"Then what should I call you?" Despite the question, Emma found herself following through what, for a lack of a better word, seemed to be a doorway, one that lead to another chamber of this place, whatever that was. Her boots scraping the floor beneath her as she tried to keep up with the retreating back of the other woman who, without braking her surprisingly brisk place, merely looked over her shoulder with something close to a smile. One that, for a moment, seemed to have too many teeth to belong to a human mouth.

"I already told you that." The woman's answer came swiftly, in the same haughty tone than before but there was a different pitch raising between each syllable.

"Queen of the Faeries." The response made the princess mouth taste like ash, like the same one in which those wiser and older tended to draw when bonfires were already dimming, and the best ghost stories could be told. Spurred by that, Emma run through the hallway, each wall at her side briefly illuminated for a moment as she stepped into it only to be rendered in darkness as soon as she took the next step. Air growing thicker the closer she moved towards the Queen, she needed a few seconds before formulating her next answer.

"The Chernabog." The liquid that covered the woman's body seemed to still for a moment, the tar-consistence resembling ink before it began to perpetually fall once again. That, aside with a mere tilt of the woman's head, were the only indicators she was truly listening to her as she merely kept on walking, the hallway seeming to not have a natural stop. Not letting that perturb her, Emma touched the roof of her mouth with her tongue, the last residues of the other's magic clinging there, an almost prickle running down her tongue as she swallowed. "You said it's a spirit from the woods; why can't you then command it to…"

"Be back to its seal? I don't rule over the forest like your kings do, mortal."

The words were full with not only disdain but tiredness and Emma felt herself almost shrink as the Queen stopped, sparks of purple drawing glyphs around them embedding themselves into the walls once again, their slowly fading light the only one that casted shadows on the woman's face. For a moment, when the blonde looked up to those brown eyes she could see the reflection of those same purple swirls; the brief flash making her think of wolves or foxes; no human mortal eyes were able to do that.

She almost retreated but she ultimately kept standing in the same spot, waiting for the other woman to answer further, to explain to herself why, what had happened.

"But you kept it sealed."

She had listened to stories, she knew about the Queen, the creatures that lurked into shadows, asking for little things -your shadow, your first morning smile, only to tear you to pieces the second you thought you were safe. And yet, alone, in the forest, the woman hadn't done that, hadn't sentence her to death. And she wanted to know why.

The queen, however, didn't seem so keen on giving her any information and, with a huff, she turned and kept on walking, finally stopping into a niche into the walls, no taller than Emma's midriff but spacious enough for the woman to be able to lay there if she so desired. Pointing at it, the brunette stood, tall as ever, maybe even taller now that Emma took a good look at her, and took a step back, a flurry of sparks running through the veins of the wood, sparkling and crackling.

"You will rest here." She said, lips taut. "At dawn you will be escorted to the main road. Safe dreams, mortal."

It was maybe her tone, the way she carried herself, but Emma remembered similar words, similar glances, thrown at her, the title Princess and child far too heavy around her shoulders and head, crowning and covering her like a mantle. One she had fled the castle for, one that had landed her there, standing in front of a myth.

Raging, she took another step closer to the brunette, enough for her knees the tips of her boots to graze the woman's dress, the substance recoiling to its touch, almost like water.

"I want to help." She enunciated. "Or, at least, not be treated like a child. You want to see me gone by morning. I will be gone. But I broke the seal. Let me help."

She stopped herself, chest heaving as the Queen stared at her, eyes cold but interested enough that she hadn't yet turned her back to her. Swallowing thickly, she winced at the parched feeling on her throat.

"Told you." The woman in front of her said dryly. "Magic leave your kind thirsty."

Jaws clenched, Emma kept on her staring, eyes narrowed as she took on every detail of the fae's face; on the way not a single muscle moved. The micro expressions she unconsciously waited to appear not once rippling the surface of the creature's face. Inhuman.

"You spoke of a treaty." She finally said, not once shagging but deciding on taking another route. "What treaty is that?"

That didn't seem to please the woman, however, as some bits of the sparks around them crackled stronger, almost as if fueled by some kind of kindling and fire the blonde couldn't see.

"You seem to ignore quite a lot of your own history, human. But you must know enough to know that us fae adore treaties." Back where the smirk and the assuredness on her eyes and Emma shuddered a little under those, not quite expecting the sudden change. Perhaps it was that what was unsettling; how perfect the woman in front of her mimicked human expressions while, at the same time, not seeming mortal at all. "Promise me on your name that you will be gone, that you will never return after this night and I will then explain enough so you leave knowing why you should not step inside the forest borders ever again."

The last bit was purred almost, the sound eliciting a new shiver on Emma's back. One that wasn't quite as unpleasant but left her breathless nonetheless.

"I swear it on my name." She said after a second, realizing the woman wasn't mocking her. With a sigh, the brunette snapped her fingers together, the hallways rotating onto itself below their feet until it transformed, leaving them both right at where they had started; in the middle of the circular room.

"How…" Turning and feeling nauseous, Emma tried to not fall onto her knees as the Queen passed her by, not sparing her a second glance.

"Magic, dear." Walking towards the middle of the room, the Queen pointed at the globules that kept irradiating light, a sudden flow of particles titillating into the wood that surrounded them both. "Which is something your kind never had had. Not a drop."

"Sorceress..."

"Children of those that gained gifts from us."

And, with her voice rising into the chamber; the Queen began to speak as outside, unknowingly by the blonde, thousands of creatures made of dew and light guarded the trees, rattling bones and hooting echoes scouring every inch of the forest floor, waiting for dawn to come.

* * *

Far away from those who searched the forest, who ululated and waited for their Queen to step outside her castle, a shadow run from tree to tree, savoring its newfound freedom. Weak, disoriented, it grazed the bark of trees with its claws, the frostbite that left behind turning the wood into black powder that disintegrated after a few seconds.

The power of the seal still compelled it, still nagged the back of its still reformatting mind and, as such, it unfolded uneven wings before snarling, the power of the forest different than the one it had grown to know, many many moons ago. A snarl echoing on the concavity that seemed its chest, it took flight, barely making further above than the crowns of the shorter trees.

It still needed time.

A time the faeries that had begun to scurry away, back to its usual posts and who could feel the magic of the Chernabog running through them all, felt running out. Fearful, one made of whispers of hundreds of beetle wings nodded to the rest and turned around: The Queen needed to learn about this. Mortal in the forest or not.

Mortal who was still eyeing the Queen as the brunette turned and raised her left hand, swirls of purple clinging to her nails. For the first time, Emma saw a glimpse of exhaustion on the otherwise impassible face of the creature, a shadow of worry momentarily making its way as well as the brunette glanced towards the still imprisoned globule-like lights that kept floating on their ash-made cages.

"Your majesty?" She called, the epithet making the creature turn back towards her, one brow arched in question.

Question that transformed into a soft growl.

"I was called The Queen of hearts by your people." She began, momentarily giving her back to the lights and Emma nodded at that, the title echoing on her mind, almost as something she had heard in a dream. "A seductress, and enchantress, a sorceress." The Queen smirked at that and Emma shivered; seeing exactly why the fae in front of her could have been considered that as she felt a tug on her chest, one different than any other thing she had already experienced throughout the night.

Rising her chin haughtily, the brunette let her hands skim her body, halting them at her thighs, pressing her palms against the substance that covered her. The almost liquid licked her fingers, almost covering them before retreating once more under Emma's gaze. "I am that and more, much more than the minds of those who first began to approach us didn't fully understood. Yet, they feared us, they revered us." Ruby lips curving yet again, eyes glazed, the Queen shook her head and Emma wondered once again how true where the stories about fairies being unable to lie and yet strangers to the concept of truth.

How much the other woman was doctoring her words? How much she truly wasn't? Entranced, she kept listening, taking a step forward the brunette with a lighter footstep than before, unable to keep still.

The Queen didn't seem to mind that, merely returning to her faraway look. One that pierced through Emma, purple coloring her strange eyes, close to but not exactly human.

"And so, they began to ask for help, for the help of a kind of power that they did not possess. And we did, because magic becomes stronger the longer we use it. And so, you mortals, the ones that dared to enter into the forest, were granted protection, fortune, power."

Emma could remember those tales, tales in where magic had been everything the kingdoms traded with, in where curses hadn't been a last resort but something so normal many knights had transformed into curse-hunters, creating guilds and lodges that had been the worst kept secret among the kingdoms.

Until it had all stopped.

"And we were called amoral for that, because for us no king was different than the other and now war was ours to fight. They began to exploit the gifts we have given to them, the children of those who first had approached us possessing a diluted version of that. Weaker with each new generation."

There was a pause there, one that bristled with anger and rage as The Queen bared her teeth, sharper than any other human had, her skin breaking for a moment into thousands of moth-like wings that quickly retreated back to its former form. Yet, when she spoke, her voice was cold and biting in a way that made Emma feel lightheaded.

"And when they began to treat us like humans, tried to sell us, to use us, to tie us with iron and silver… Revenge was ours."

There was a pause, one Emma wasn't sure the Queen would ever break again and so she kept silent herself, still unsure of why, of how much she was truly being shown. Until the brunette sighed and closed her eyes, the tension leaving the room for a moment as thousands of specs of dust glimmering on the walls as she did so; waiting for their Queen to command them with an anger that made her power drip off her, disrupting the tar-like substance that kept her clothed, creating rivers of shimmering power on its wake.

And when she spoke again, her voice was rougher, less distant, more human and Emma closed her own eyes at that, a shiver running through her spine.

"Many died during that time, many from our and their side. Until a treaty was created. One that granted you humans one and only passage through the woods, one that should never be broken, and we were left to our forest. Our true home; away from those who had tried to obliterate us. No more wishes, no more curses, no more magic."

Sucking air, realizing she had been holding her breath, Emma eyed the woman in front of her as the Queen stared at her, eyes now following her every movement.

"And you turned into fairytales."

A dry chuckle fell from the Queen's lips, one that made Emma smile a little, the sound terrifying and yet closer to what a human would do, a mortal would do. Shrugging, the Queen hummed, her voice softer but still low when she spoke again.

"Apparently we did."

"But then? Why…"

Stepping closer to Emma, closer than before, The Queen eyed her with something close to, maybe, longing. One that was quickly casted aside as Emma felt her own chest constrict yet again, her lungs unmoving as she felt the other woman's magic hovering between them; its scent heady and strange.

"We are very different from you, human, but we can still be blinded by rage. A different one, but a real one nonetheless. And after generations of using wishes to harvest our magic… we also paid a price."


End file.
